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Baloch community members attended a demonstration in Paris to celebrate Baloch Martyrs’ Day, carrying banners and Baloch flags. On Friday, the Baloch Republican Party held a demonstration at Place de la Republique.
‘Stop enforced disappearance in Balochistan’ and ‘Stop Baloch people being executed’ were among the signs. The demonstrators also displayed images of persons who have allegedly been kidnapped by Pakistani forces in the past.
Baloch Martyrs’ Day is commemorated every year on November 13 to honour Baloch activists who gave their lives for the freedom of Balochistan. Thousands of Balochs have been kidnapped and disappeared during Pakistan’s illegal occupation, and hundreds more have been killed as part of the country’s “kill and dump” strategy. Hundreds of thousands of people are still missing.
This issue has been suppressed till now due to the civilised world’s silence and apathy, as well as a lack of media and other methods in Balochistan. Since the beginning of Pakistan’s colonisation of Balochistan, the state has utilised enforced disappearance as a method to silence the oppressed people of the province.
Thousands of abductees have been killed, while many more are still being tortured in army secret prisons. Balochistan is a resource-rich yet underdeveloped Pakistani region where an independence struggle has been brewing for decades. Many Balochs think the territory was independent before 1947, but was taken by Pakistan forcibly.
While successive governments have claimed to make enforced disappearance a crime, no meaningful actions have been taken, and the practise continues unabated. In the region, combat has recently escalated between Pakistani security forces and Baloch rebels.
The US State Department has identified severe human rights violations in Pakistan in its 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights, including the government’s unlawful or arbitrary killings and the forced disappearance of Pashtun, Sindhi, and Baloch human rights advocates.
